Christine: Dreams of Light
by SunandShadows
Summary: Christine reflects on her past and her choices. I'm not satisfied with this one, but my beta assures me it's good -- and I trust his judgment better than my own.


**Christine – Dreams of Light**

I used to believe in fairy tales.  
When I was a child,  
my father would delight me for hours  
with tales of sprites, pixies, and  
other dark creatures of the wild places the world.  
I would sit for hours at his knee,  
begging him for just one more story  
to spin into dreams to wrap me safe and warm all night.  
What I loved best, though,  
was when he would make up for me  
stories of the Angel of Music,  
a shining being who would protect and  
guide those he deemed worthy of his regard.  
How I prayed every day to be worthy!  
Every evening I would fall asleep,  
tucked warm and soft beneath a blanket of softest wool,  
to the sound of my father's voice,  
and in my dreams  
it was the Angel of Music who sang.  
With the Angel I was safe –  
but when I awoke, I was always alone.

When my father died, I thought I would never hear  
my Angel again, and I wept for the cruelty of fate.  
What right had he to leave me alone?  
Without him, what could I be?  
Skinny, awkward, naïve,  
frightened of my own shadow…  
how could I stand on my own feet,  
when I needed the Angel's wings to lift me..?  
I cried myself to sleep every night,  
with Meg's little hand in mine –  
she couldn't understand that without him, I had no one to _be_.

I tried to go on, truly I did.  
I tried to pick up the pieces  
and find the woman inside the child,  
to grow and learn to open my heart  
as wide as my eyes.  
But however I tried,  
I remained that lost child,  
wandering helpless through  
the wilderness of fear and shame.

I neverthought to hear his voice again –  
there, of all places, where I thought myself alone.  
Did I dream? But, no –  
it was him, my Angel, and in my relief and wonder  
I fell fainting into his arms;  
I did not notice that his wings were dark  
as the black silk of his cape,  
as his eyes,  
as his mask.

I knew nothing but his voice and his eyes,  
shining like amber, and holding me fast.  
I was lost in him, and found –  
his tumultuous playing was to my parched soul  
like being drenched in a glorious downpour  
after years – _decades_ – lost  
amid desert sands and heat;  
And when he spoke the music continued,  
finding its harmonies echoed  
in the rushing beats of my own timid heart.  
How could I help but be his?  
I had belonged to him far longer  
than I'd known myself,  
given to him by my own father,  
the one I trusted best.

I gave him my soul,  
and if part of me died in the giving,  
I accepted more in return than I lost.  
He gave me my voice,  
helped me find the will to use it  
the way only he believed I could.  
No one was more surprised than I when  
the timid sparrow became a nightengale  
before the world's adoring eyes –  
and _his_.

Ah, you'd wondered when I'd get to him…

Raoul.  
The spoiled younger son who got it into his head  
to rescue me, to save me from myself  
and from the dark Angel who kept watch over me.  
Did I ever truly love him, you ask?  
Was there more to our story  
than a rich young puppy  
and a petted and cossetted ingenue  
looking for a way to exit stage left before her lengthy bill  
came due..?  
For I owed Erik more than I could ever repay,  
yet Raoul was my first love,  
the first who'd ever believed in me for myself.

Though many have called me fickle for accepting his ring  
while Erik burned with his solitary agony,  
I beg you to remember that _it was not my choosing.  
_Ever the pawn of those stronger than I,  
even the dignity of that one irrevocable choice  
was withheld from me –  
for when my lips touched Erik's,  
something passed between he and Raoul  
at that moment,  
something that changed us all,  
in an instant burned forever into time.  
Does he still relive it as I do?  
And does he regret the choice he made  
when he sent me away forever in the arms of another man?

I would hate him for taking that decision from me –  
the one decision I should have made,  
for once in my life to decide for myself –  
but I know that in doing so  
my Angel saved me one last time,  
though he sacrificed himself in the doing:  
Now when I fall asleep  
clutching a pillow damp with my tears,  
when I awake alone, empty arms reaching out  
to the pitiless darkness,  
I can curse _him_ for the empty life I lead,  
instead of my own empty heart.

AMH  
12 April, 2005


End file.
